An aspirant's several years search for Allah, made possible by His grace/mercy ,and not through any efforts of the seeker

Saturday, April 30, 2016

209. ST.
Catherine of Siena. Part fourteen

We were discussing the miracles after death of St.
Catherine.

10A
woman on a pilgrimage from Germany could hardly see from her eyes due to some
eye disease. She prayed to the holy virgin for improvement of her vision and
vowed. After a short interval her vision got much better. She visited the tomb
of St Catherine.

11.A Roman lady by the name of
Maria lost the vision of one eye and had pain. She went into seclusion from
shame. She devoutly prayed to Catherine. One night Catherine appeared in her
dream and told her to throw away her medicines and attend Mass every morning
and she will be cured. The pain stopped at once. Vision also improved. As she
continued attending the Mass she was completely cured.

12.A youth named Giacomo and a
Roman woman Cilia de Petruccio, both, were near their end by diseases. Both
were cured by praying to Catherine.

13.A servant woman, Bona di
Giovanni, was washing a quilt. The heavy water-soaked quilt could not be
managed by Bona and started being taken away by the water current along with
the helpless woman. She called out, “O’ holy virgin, Catherine of Siena, save
me from this great danger”. Suddenly, the quilt, along with Bona, started
moving towards the bank, and landed there. The woman, in all honesty, thought
that it was a miracle.

14.Raymond was told of the
above mentioned miracles, but here is one miracle part of which he personally witnessed:

15.A young Roman, Nicolo, was
suffering from a throat disease called quinsy. The air passage was close to
complete blockage, which would have lead to his death. Alexia, the great companion
of Late Catherine, was a friend of Nicolo family. She had a tooth of Catherine
in her possession. She rushed to the patient, put the tooth close tohis faceand begged Catherine to cure him. Immediately there was a noise as if
something had burst. Foul matter came out and he was cured.

On one occasion Raymond was
preaching and he told the story of this miracle. As ithappened Nicolo was in the audience. He stood
up and corroborated the episode.

16.In 1384, head of St
Catherine was brought to Siena from Rome. A solemn reception was held. Raymond
arranged a lunch for the friars and the guests to celebrate the occasion. Due
to some mistake bread was found to be inadequate; it was enough for five
persons whereas there were about fifty people to feed. The Prior immediately
sent two friars to friendly houses to collect more bread.They did not return for some time. Prior
ordered for loaves to be served to the guests. I quote Raymond, “…either in the
bin, or on the table, or somewhere or other, those loaves by Catherine’s merits
multiplied miraculously to such an extent that ……everybody was able to eat as
much as they liked …..”. “ …I turned to the guests, and said, ‘Our mother did
not want this day to go without a miracle for us, …she wanted to show that our
ceremony pleased her…”’

Levitation.
I have already mentioned it in blog 196

Not burnt by fire.
Once Catherine was sitting by the fire and rotating the spit. She fell in an
ecstasy. Her sister-in-law, Lisa, saw it and removed her hand from the spit.
Lisa got busy in other chores in the house and did not return to Catherine for
several hours. As it happened, Catherine had fallen over the burning embers.
Lisa shrieked and dragged her out of the fire. She found out that Catherine’s
clothes and body were unaffected by the fire. There was no smell of burning.
There was not the slightest trace of ash on her dress.

One day, in church, a lighted candle fell on the veil covering
Catherine’s head, while she knelt. The candle kept on burning till all the wax
was consumed and then the flame went out. It did not burn the veil and did no
harm to Catherine.

This miracle was watched by many of her companions, including Lisa,
Alexia, and Francesca.

Driving out evil
spirit. A modern man
like me does not know what to do with this section, because in modern time we
do not see evil spirits possessing human beings. Modern science calls it
Hysteria. Jesus Christ drove out demons and Saint Catherine drove out demons,
as mentioned in detail by Raymond. I cannot describe them as they were not
miracles, but recovery from sicknesses by the grace of Jesus

Close proximity to Jesus. She was extremely close to
Jesus. This closeness was acquired after she won an epic battle with the forces
of evil for several days. She was a young woman at that time. It started with
carnal temptations. She fought them with great fortitude. It progressed to men
and women performing vile sexual acts. Foul acts and obscene words were
presented to her mind. Throngs of shameless crowds invited her to join them. She
would retreat to church, where she would get some help, but not complete
protection.

One night a great light appeared and lit the room. Bleeding
Jesus Christ, nailed to the cross, was in that vision and her battle ended .
She bitterly complained for not helping her.